


Matters of Memory, Counteracted by the Present

by prairiecrow



Series: The "KnightFall" Knight Rider Future AU [3]
Category: Knight Rider (1982)
Genre: Culture Shock, Established Relationship, Friendship, Future Fic, Love, M/M, Robot Sex, Sexual Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-03
Updated: 2012-12-03
Packaged: 2017-11-20 03:53:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/581028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A careless comment by Michael raises some unpleasant recollections for KITT, and Michael sets out to make things right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Matters of Memory, Counteracted by the Present

**Author's Note:**

> Set subsequent to the Michael/KITT chapter of "Six Complicated Situations":
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/580352/chapters/1042544
> 
> and takes place about three months after they've set out on the run from the KnightFall Consortium.

"I don't believe this," Michael Knight muttered, lounging in the command couch of KITT-as-starship and drinking a cup of Insta-Caff while flipping channels on the large viewscreen to pick up signals from the planet they were currently orbiting — and bored out of his cloned skull. "Here it is, the twenty-third century, and they _still_ make soap operas." 

"Believe me," KITT-as-humanoid remarked, coming to stand at his side and looking up at the screen (where two well-dressed women were screaming at each other about who loved their husband more) with a critical quirk of one fine black eyebrow, "that's nothing compared to what happens in real life. The KnightFall Consortium was rife with enough hatred, resentment, sexual passion and double-crossing to fuel ten networks for a hundred years." 

"Do tell?" Michael glanced up with a glimmer of real interest. 

"Oh yes," KITT groused. "Brantin Miles had a string of lovers as long as this starship, and he kept playing them off against each other for his own amusement. Why, at one point he had three — _three!_ — of them chasing _me_ , none of whom I would have touched with a ten-metre pole if they were the last humanoids in the cosmos." 

"Well, that's not really surprising," Michael smirked, putting down the remote and sliding that hand slyly sideways. "You're a hot little number." 

KITT scowled, clearly not amused. "I'm not joking, Michael." 

Michael raised his eyebrows innocently. "And you think I am?" 

"Kindly remove your hand from my ass." 

He did so, but with a pretence of a reproving scowl. "Well, aren't _you_ in a mood." 

"I'm sorry," KITT almost growled, "but memories of KnightFall in almost any capacity since Brantin Miles took over its administration are far from pleasant for me." 

That sobered Michael quickly. He set aside the coffee and sat up straighter, shifting his hand to curve it around KITT's narrow waist. "C'mere," he said, gently tugging, and after a grudging moment the simulator followed the pull of his hand and sat down cross-legged in his lap. "Now I'm the one who's sorry, pal. After what that bastard did to you —" 

KITT shook his head. "No, Michael, I'm the one who should be apologizing. It's not your fault that the man was a two-toned low-riding bastard, or that I effectively belonged to him for almost ten years." 

"Yeah, but I don't have to bring up bad old memories." 

"I never forget anything," KITT reminded him.  

"I know." He rubbed the robot's slimly muscled back soothingly for a moment through the grey silk shirt he was currently wearing, then ran his hand up to cup the nape of KITT's neck, pulling him in for a soft kiss full of contrition. "But I don't have to keep bringing it up. And if I ever meet him, I'm still going to put him through the nearest plate glass window for what he did to you." 

"You'll have to stand in line, I'm afraid." 

"Yeah, but if you throw him he'll end up in orbit, so give me first crack, huh?" 

KITT nuzzled against the human's hair, inhaling its scent. Michael waited — he knew the quality of that pause, full of thoughtfulness — and after a moment KITT said quietly: "You know, that was one of the things I was most afraid of after I'd heard that you'd been brought back as an Akashic clone: that even if I was able to find you and set you free, you'd detest what I'd become. That after you saw me kill the guards who were holding you prisoner you'd refuse to have anything to do with me." 

"Hey." He cupped the sim's broad jaw in his right hand and pushed KITT away just far enough to look directly into his sober ruby eyes. "And I told you that I know how people can change. You did what you had to do to survive. I can't blame you for that, and I never will." He laughed a little incredulously. "What I still can't believe is that you kept loving me for over two hundred years."

KITT nodded with a sad, strangely sweet smile of his own. "Gestalts aren't like Organics, Michael. We never forget, remember?" He brought his own right hand to his lover's face, tracing his cheekbone and the curve of his cheek with a tender touch. "We _can't_ forget. There were days when memories of you were all I had to hold onto, especially after Brantin started… but let's not talk about that." 

Michael closed his eyes and leaned forward to press his forehead to the robot's, his inner resolve to make the current head of the KnightFall Consortium pay for what he'd done strengthening, even though he might never know the details — and if sharing them would cause KITT additional pain, he was perfectly fine with not knowing. He'd seen firsthand how deadly KITT had become the very first time he'd met the humanoid sim, a ruthless mechanism of destruction both with firearms and with his own body, as well as with any external hardware he could hijack with his mind… but under that cool and deadly exterior he'd quickly realized that the soul of _his_ KITT, the gentlest spirit he'd ever known, still existed: some of its shiny scuffed off, more deeply cynical and more politically calculating, but KITT nonetheless. It had taken him a while longer to realize that he was falling in love, but once he'd understood what was happening between them he'd jumped in with both feet and never looked back. 

Opening his eyes, he found KITT gazing back at him solemnly. His heart rose into his throat at the sheer perfection of that sculpted face, those inhuman eyes, the delicately drawn eyebrows currently quirked in an unspoken question. Skin like alabaster, sleek hair like ebony, with a fine beard-line that traced the contour of his jaw and his chin, the point of it spiking toward his narrow but tender lower lip… he was so exquisitely made and handsome in a sharp-featured way that complimented his personality down to the ground, and there were days when Michael found himself unrepentantly staring at his much smaller companion, momentarily rendered breathless by KITT's effortless glamour and supremely assured grace. The sim looked as delicate as a doll, shorter than most human males and slimly built, but those who underestimated him often learned to their sorrow that he was an impeccably dressed lightning bolt capable of smiting his enemies into smoking dust.  

 _And he loves me. After two hundred and eleven years apart, after all the tension and frustration we face just about every day, after all the smart-ass comments I've made, after all the times I've been an angry asshole for no good reason…_   

The questioning look was rapidly becoming a frown. "Michael —?" 

He wrapped both arms around KITT's waist and kissed him again, warm and lingering, before looking directly into those gleaming alien eyes. "I love you," he whispered gruffly, and made a mental tick to mark the fourth time he'd ever expressed that emotion in so many words. "And I promise that nobody will ever hurt you that way again." 

A rare full-out smile, dazzling in its intensity, lit up KITT's face. "Well then," he murmured, sliding his right hand around to the back of Michael's neck and up into his hair, "I suppose that constitutes a binding agreement to take care of each other? Duly noted. Do you mind if I start right now?" 

And then he proceeded to do things that made Michael forget all about the soap opera, which strutted and fretted its overly dramatic path across the screen overhead, completely unheeded.

THE END 


End file.
